The present invention relates to a device for detecting errors of a plurality of electric parts which are built in electronic equipment and, more particularly, to a device for detecting errors of fans included in a cooling system which forms a part of a computer.
An error detecting device is installed in many of modern electronic equipment for detecting and reporting errors of various electric parts of the equipment and thereby uging actions. In a computer, for example, a great number of circuit packages each having integrated circuits (ICs) and electronic parts such as capacitors and resistors therein are accommodated in a housing, each IC including transistors and other electronic parts. A cooling system implemented by a plurality of fans is arranged in the housing to cool the eletronic parts which are the source of heat generation. When any of the fans fails to operate properly due to some cause, it is likely that the circuit packages, i.e., the individual electronic parts loaded thereon are heated to become practically inoperable. In the light of this, an error detecting device is usually associated with the cooling system and arranged such that, on detection of an error of any of the fans, it cuts off the power supply to the computer automatically or takes a similar measure. While such as error detecting device has been proposed in various forms, prior art devices cannot show which of the fans has failed specifically or, if they can do so, the reliability of operation is not satisfactory.